Project Updates
Monitoring Project Uses LEAN-Agile
The LEAN-Agile board for the Monitoring Project. You can see it in the TOC.
The Monitoring project is using a LEAN-Agile framework for project execution. This approach uses cross functional self-managed teams with a Scrum master guiding the team in daily scrum meetings and a project manager leading the team through the project and the LEAN-Agile process. As much as possible, the team meets face to face to create "high-band width" communication. The TOC meeting rooms is being used as the teams "war room."
This augmented approach to the scrum methodology is being used on several projects already (Amcom, Blackboard, and PeopleSoft HR upgrades, etc.). The incorporation of LEAN into a traditional Agile project framework means that the team is using the project management practice of rolling wave planning – elaborating the scope of the project as new information arises and adjusting the framework and the process as needed.
The product owner team of Brett Coryell (OIT), Michael Keown (Enterprise Services), and Paul Petersen (Infrastructure) works closely with the project team to make sure that we are delivering the things that they value and in the order that they value them. They are active participants, with Paul and Michael participating on the core team and Brett participating in "Show Time" sessions every other week. They are responsible for making the product backlog (Project scope) reflect what they want the team to focus on for the sprint. They "groom" the product backlog to reprioritize items and eliminate anything that does not bring them value.
You can see the Vision document for the project as defined by Brett and the team's work on the wall of the TOC. We are also using a virtual scrum board to manage the sprint work daily. We plan each iteration, commit to specific work and then present the "done" deliverables to Brett in a "Show Time." The iterative process allows the team to make adjustments as needed, capitalizing on what works best and eliminating or "tweaking" what is not working as they review each sprint in a sprint retrospective meeting.
The Monitoring Project is large-scale effort to create a collective view for event and availability monitoring across the enterprise. With the kick-off on March 22-23, the team is now in their first sprint focusing on this short term goal of availability dashboard display for nine services that Brett identified.
The team is investigating current capabilities so that we can create a quick view of availability for each service in terms of red, yellow, or green. The team is also working through high level goals and objectives to create the roadmap with milestones, using the value-ranked product backlog (scope) with the project vision. The team will continue to decompose the backlog, estimate the backlog items, determine done criteria, acceptance criteria, as well as deliverables for each item.
Down the line, we will need to determine, based on our current tool set, where our gaps are and what we need to add to analyze availability at the event level. This is necessary to provide proactive problem and availability management. The scope is huge when you think about it.
The cool piece is that the team approach takes the collective expertise of the team and allows that to drive the creativity to deliver the value that the Enterprise sees. They are constantly reevaluating what we are doing, which helps us know that we are on track.
- Felicia Bianchi, Project Manager, PMO
Lost Smartphone Study
This could happen to you.
Recently, NPR ran a story about Symantec's "Smart phone honey stick project," which sought to quantify how likely you are to get your phone back if you lose it, and what type of data people attempt to access on devices that they find. Symantec's goal in this endeavor of course was to provide proof that you should buy their mobile security products, but I think the findings are nonetheless very interesting.
Some the of numbers are shocking. When a business-connected mobile device is lost, there is more than an 80% chance an attempt will be made to breach corporate data and/or networks. A total of 83% of the devices showed attempts to access corporate-related apps or data, while 43% of the attempts were to access corporate email.
People are naturally curious, but when a lost mobile device is discovered, curiosity can lead to the violation of personal privacy and the exposure of sensitive personal information. An attempt was made to access at least one of the various apps or files on nearly all, 96%, of the devices. This included access of personal data including phone numbers, photos, bank accounting apps, social networking sites, and personal email.
This is just a reminder that over the next two months we will be holding a series of open door sessions related to the implementation of the smart device security policy. These will be open forums where you can drop by, ask questions, discuss the policy, talk about issues your users have experienced, share troubleshooting tips, etc. All sessions will be held in NDB 205 Skidaway. The first will be Thursday, April 19, from 3 to 4:30 p.m. The second will be Thursday, May 3, from 10 to 11:30 a.m.
- Derek Spransy, Information Security Specialist, Information Security
St. Joseph's PeopleSoft Projects
Founded in 1880, St. Joseph's is Atlanta's oldest hospital. Nonetheless, it is also very modern as well.
The St. Joseph's Hospital (SJH) PeopleSoft financials project closed in March with the successful first month-end close that included SJH as a part of Emory Healthcare (EHC).
Key OIT team members Joann Dodson, Curt Stauffer, and Rob Vannah (all from Enterprise Applications), as well as Carol King and Larry Cain (Finance), Matt Carpenter, Selene Harris, Yolanda Jenkins, Shannon Turner (all from Emory Healthcare) worked as a high performing team navigating challenges and working through issues to make this as problem free as possible.
The SJH PeopleSoft HR project is almost complete with all of the SJH employees on the EHC payroll and receiving benefits through Emory. On January 22, we saw the successful onboarding of all the employees and helped them log in and use the eVantage (PeopleSoft HR) system and look at their online pay checks.
The core team of Kaven Moodley and Rob Vannah (both from Enterprise Applications), as well as EHC members Pat Hall-Summey, Ann Lear, Marion Oglesby, Carol Smith, Darlene Wade, worked long hours alongside the PeopleSoft Developers, Pam Johnson, Steve Kaiser, James Alston, Kathy Moore, Rick Ferguson, and Kim Madsen (all from Enterprise Applications) to get everything correct on the first pay check.
The team is working on the last interface with the SJH café deductions that will be in production the end of April.
- Felicia Bianchi, Project Manager, PMO